Best Sellers: Paperback Trade Fiction: Sunday, July 3rd 2011

Published: July 3, 2011

About the Best Sellers:

These lists are an expanded version of those appearing in the July 3, 2011 print edition of the Book Review, reflecting sales for the week ending June 18, 2011. An asterisk (*) indicates that a book's sales are barely distinguishable from those of the book above it. A dagger (†) indicates that some retailers report receiving bulk orders. For an explanation of our methodology, visit http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers.

Weeks

Best Sellers: Paperback Trade Fiction

This

On

Week

List

1

11

THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett. (Berkley, $16.) Three women — a white socialite and two black maids — work on a tell-all book about black domestic servants in 1960s Mississippi.

2

125

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, by Sara Gruen. (Algonquin, $13.95.) Distraught after the death of his parents in a car accident, a young veterinary student — and an elephant — save a Depression-era circus.

3

7

ROOM, by Emma Donoghue. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $14.99.) The entire world of the 5-year-old boy who narrates this novel is the 11-by-11-foot room in which his mother is being held prisoner.

4

73

CUTTING FOR STONE, by Abraham Verghese. (Vintage, $15.95.) Twin brothers, conjoined and then separated, grow up amid the political turmoil of Ethiopia.

5

106

THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN, by Garth Stein. (Harper Paperbacks, $14.99.) An insightful Lab-terrier mix helps his owner, a struggling race car driver.

6*

13

A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD, by Jennifer Egan. (Anchor, $14.95.) Time is the relentless “goon squad” in this rock ’n’ roll novel, which explores the tattered lives of a cynical record producer and the people who intersect his world; a 2011 Pulitzer winner.

7

104

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson. (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, $14.95.) A hacker and a journalist investigate the disappearance of a Swedish heiress; the first volume in the Millennium trilogy.

8

16

ONE DAY, by David Nicholls. (Vintage, $14.95.) Checking in year by year on the confused, halting romance of two children of the ’80s.

9

181

THE ALCHEMIST, by Paulo Coelho. (HarperOne, $14.99.) In this fable, a Spanish shepherd boy ventures to Egypt in search of treasure and his destiny.

10

6

A GAME OF THRONES, by George R. R. Martin. (Bantam, $17.) In the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are mustering; Book 1 of "A Song of Ice and Fire."

11

2

THE LION, by Nelson DeMille. (Grand Central, $14.99.) John Corey, now a federal agent, pursues Asad Khalil — the notorious Libyan terrorist known as the Lion — who has returned to America bent on revenge.

12

4

A DOG'S PURPOSE, by W. Bruce Cameron. (Forge, $12.99.) From stray mutt to golden-haired puppy, a dog finds himself reincarnated over the years as he searches for his purpose in life.

13

63

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson. (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, $15.95.) In Volume 2 of the Millennium trilogy, the Swedish hacker Lisbeth Salander becomes a murder suspect.

14

120

SARAH’S KEY, by Tatiana de Rosnay. (St. Martin’s Griffin, $13.95.) A contemporary American journalist investigates what happened to a little girl and her family during the roundup of Jews in Paris in 1942.

15

4

FULL DARK, NO STARS, by Stephen King. (Gallery, $16.) Four long stories, light on the supernatural and dealing mostly with grisly human behavior.

16

56

HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET, by Jamie Ford. (Ballantine, $15.) A friendship between a Chinese-American boy and a Japanese-American girl in Seattle during World War II.

17*

1

STILL MISSING, by Chevy Stevens. (St. Martin’s Griffin, $14.99.) After a year in a remote mountain cabin with her sadistic abductor, a woman fights to piece her shattered life back together.

18

1

A CLASH OF KINGS, by George R. R. Martin. (Bantam, $17.) From the citadel of Dragonstone to the shores of Winterfell, factions vie for control of a divided land; Book 2 of "A Song of Ice and Fire."

19*

2

THE RED QUEEN, by Philippa Gregory. (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, $16.) More intrigue during the War of the Roses, centered on Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII; by the author of “The Other Boleyn Girl.”

20

66

LITTLE BEE, by Chris Cleave. (Simon & Schuster, $14.) The lives of two women collide: a Nigerian refugee and an English magazine editor to whose home the refugee escapes after fleeing an immigration detention center.